3 deaths: Victim screams for help after accident; onlookers click selfies till he dies

Jan 17: Police have busted a "high- profile" sex racket operating in a three-star hotel in suburban Andheri and arrested a 29-year-old woman and rescued three female artists, including a minor, an official said on Thursday.

The Social Service (SS) branch of the city police conducted the raid at the hotel at Andheri East on Thursday, the official said.

"During the raid, three females, including a minor, were found to have been forced into prostitution. They were rescued and a woman, identified as Priya Sharma, who was operating the racket, was arrested," he said.

"Sharma was running tours and travel agency in Kandivali East. However, she was involved in immoral activities," senior inspector of SS branch, Sandesh Revale, said.

While one of the rescued is a woman actor and singer, who has worked in 'Savdhaan India' TV crime show, he said, another one has worked in a Marathi movie and serials.

The minor has worked in a web series, Revale added.

The offence was being registered against Sharma, he said.

Jaipur, Jan 27: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that if the Citizenship Amendment Act leads to the implementation of the NPR and the NRC, it would be a complete victory for Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

He said that Jinnah's idea of a country was already winning in India with the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) coming into effect, but asserted that there was still a choice available.

"I would not say Jinnah has completely won, but I would say Jinnah is winning. There is still a choice available to the nation between Jinnah's idea of a country and Gandhiji's idea of a country," he said on the sidelines of the Jaipur Literature Festival on Sunday.

The CAA came into force in India in December amid protests across the country and around the world.

The MP from Thiruvananthapuram said that the amended Citizenship Act took Jinnah's logic by declaring that religion shall be the basis of nationhood, reaffirming that Gandhi's idea is that all religions are equal .

"The CAA is, if you are talking Tennis, you would say one set up or big first set lead for Jinnah. But the next step would be if the CAA would lead to the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). If that happens, then you would consider that Jinnah's victory is complete," he said.

The CAA seeks to grant citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.

On the BJP's defence that the NPR was carried out during the UPA regime, Tharoor said that the Congress government had utilised a decision of the NDA government led by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"It never asked where were your parents born. It never authorised the enumerators to note on the margin 'dubious citizenship', a term used in the NPR rules crafted by this government. That is purely BJP's invention," he said.

If we go around this country authorising people to interview all the citizens, or identify some who have 'dubious citizenship', you can be pretty sure which Indians are going to be found on the 'dubious citizenship', he said.

"That will principally be one community that is not mentioned in the CAA. And if that happens, then it is indeed Jinnah's victory.

"From wherever he is, he can point to this place and say, 'see I was right in the 1940. We are separate nations and Muslims deserved their own country because Hindus cannot be just'," Tharoor said.

Speaking about the Delhi election, the three-time MP said that the maximum development in the national capital happened under the Congress government.

"What Sheila Dikshit did in her 15 years as Chief Minister of Delhi, no other leader could do it before or after her," he said.

Tirupur, Feb 20: Nineteen people died in a collision between a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus and a truck near Avinashi town of Tirupur district on Thursday morning here.

The bus was on its way to Ernakulam in Kerala from Bengaluru in Karnataka when the mishap occurred.

Deputy Tehsildar of Avinashi Town informed, "19 people that include 14 men and 5 women, died in the collision between the bus and the truck near Avinashi town."

The bodies have been taken to Tirupur government hospital.
Further details are awaited.